Realistically, I don't want to live through any kind of apocalypse. Rebuild civilization?? Uh, no thank you, that sounds hard and rather annoying. Lol. Plus, I'm relatively certain that 2/3 of my dogs wouldn't make it through a zombie wave (barky herding dog + zombies == all of us getting munched).

My biggest draw back for survival is living in town.......but......my best friend lives on 9 acres and has made it clear we MUST come there if anything major goes down. Bad part is, she lives 14 miles away! Doesn't sound like much, but we've all seen disaster movies where making it 2 miles was near impossible!

Her house is in the middle of the property, positioned on a hill, so THAT is a plus. We have firearms of course and know how to use them. We are both knowledgeable about growing/gathering food as well as preserving food (canning, dehydrating, etc) and can do it without the power company if needed, LOL

Since we go camping, we have everything you need for outdoor life if it came to that. Packs, tents, cooking gear, compass, etc etc. We have small (pocket sized) guide books on native herbs/plants for eating, healing, disinfecting, etc included in our packs as well.

Long term (homestead), I know how (and have been doing for over a year) to make lye soap, laundry soap, and cleaning supplies....from complete scratch if I have to like Ashes from wood fire (potassium hydroxide) instead of store bought lye, I can make our own vinegar if needed as well. I can make cottage cheese, yogurt, butter, etc from cow or goat milk.

Our husbands (very much alike!) are cooperative, versatile, and are very handy with building, repairing, and not complaining.

There's no way to be ready for anything, but I've been preparing (knowledge wise) for everything I can think of. Hopefully, all those things can remain hobbies and will never be needed.

Randomly, Brian and I were talking about this last night. We are ideally set up for apocalypse survival, LOL. We live in a very remote rural area. It's probably the last place the zombie hoards could get to, and we're used to being self-sufficient. We're fully stocked with tons of food, medical supplies, tools and building supplies, large propane tanks, and guns and ammo. Plus, there are a bunch of edible animals roaming around here. I also have an enormous veggie garden and a bunch of seeds.

I know how to butcher and preserve animals and food, sew, plus do a good share of building and repairs. Hubby is great with electrical, building and anything mechanical. To top it off, we basically already live in a bunker. Every wall in our house, interior walls included, is made of concrete. Seriously. You have to use a concrete bit and a hammer drill to hang pictures on the walls.

Seed storage. It doesn't matter how much you know about growing/preserving food if you don't have any seed to plant. There are a good number of medicinal plants that can replace simple things like antibiotic ointment too (like calendula).

I've done test plantings for curiosity's sake, what has the best yields in our climate. An open pollinated heirloom flour corn called "Mohave" gave us 4 lbs of dry grain in a 4'x10' test plot. It was enough to crack and keep my ducks fat over the winter. The awesome thing about that variety is it is frost hardy, has large ears, can be eaten off the cob during the milk stage, and it tassels about a month earlier than any other variety I've seen so you don't have to worry about it crossing with your neighbor's corn.

Still searching for the ideal dry bean.

Early Wonder beets. Cabbage. Nero di Toscana kale, lettuces, ONIONS. You can grow a LOT of onions in a tiny space. Cabbage heads store forever and give you the highest nutritional yields for the space. Squash has a ton of meat and the seeds are high protein, and they store well too.

You can survive off a pretty nice stew of beets, potatoes, onion, and cabbage, + the occasional rat/squirrel/deer/fish/whatever you can get your hands on, for a long time.

I'd go the route every European who ever survived a military invasion has done and grow root crops. People will come through and take what you have. They're not going to check the weed patch for potatoes and beets. I know a guy who takes 5 gallon buckets, and packs them with veggies layered in straw. You don't let the vegetables touch when you pack them so you don't lose the whole bucket if one does go bad. He sticks the lid on, and buries the bucket with a rock on top of the lid, and has a map of all his buried buckets. He said that the carrots, potatoes, etc. all stay good for about 8 months that way. He said he has enough food buried to feed everyone within a 10 mile radius if things got bad, so he doesn't have to shoot anybody.

For livestock I'd want meat rabbits and quail. Both are quiet and can be hidden pretty easily, and they don't eat human food. Cattle and sheep would disappear really quickly. Some day I want to raise them anyway.

I'd also start a worm farm. Setting up a pond and seeding it with catfish would be pretty good, but in a pinch the worms would keep you from starving. I can't imagine someone trying to steal your worms either. lol.

We have plenty of guns and ammo though our zombie gun( the sks) just sold. Live where we can see people coming but have some cover. Have horses (but have you read the zombie guide on them lol!).

Chaz can build or fix anything car or building wise.

And I'm a nurse. Tons of medical ecquipment for horses that I use for us!

I've watched to much walking dead and other zombie movies with the bf lol! I already wanted to be self sufficient. When swine flu came out here almost first you woulda thought someone turned into a zombie!

__________________

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain
dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few
persons -James Thurber

Oh I'm dying within the first few hours for sure.
No real nature survival skills. I live in a big city. I don't own any weapons. I can barely cook/fend for myself (I barely have food around/tend to order in a lot).
Other than the fact that I am very good at being a hermit (sitting in a place quietly and reading all day long) I have basically all things stacked against me

A few days without wifi or use of my blow dryer and I'll probably be throwing myself at them lol

__________________

Disclaimer: I work for Trupanion and love it/our policy! But I do not speak for the company or as the company.

Oh I'm dying within the first few hours for sure.
No real nature survival skills. I live in a big city. I don't own any weapons. I can barely cook/fend for myself (I barely have food around/tend to order in a lot).
Other than the fact that I am very good at being a hermit (sitting in a place quietly and reading all day long) I have basically all things stacked against me

A few days without wifi or use of my blow dryer and I'll probably be throwing myself at them lol

with that one ability alone i could probably turn you into a half descent strategic sniper.
if you can bring yourself to crawl through the worst crap imagineable & spread two days worth of food across a week, i could probably turn you into a descent strategic sniper.

Well, for where I live, I guess I might last a little while. We have a solid brick house, a six foot fence, and a fair amount of food. Of course, we lose power and much of it goes bad.

I suppose with a generator and a gun (neither of which we have right now) we might make it for a while. Of course, I'd probably be trying to figure out how to get to the farm . . . and wandering around the countryside is a bad idea.

On the other hand, I have a river under my house, so we can just dig a well in the basement!

__________________I'm a lawyer, but I'm not YOUR lawyer. Nothing I say should be taken as legal advice.
The Court's extensive review of these pages serves as a useful reminder that loaded guns, sharp objects and law degrees should be kept out of the reach of children. -- United States Magistrate Judge Paul Cleary